Lush
by SilentxWriter
Summary: When they fought, Kurt drank. And when Kurt drank, Kurt drank until he blacked out. And when Kurt blacked out …. Warnings: mentions of suicide, dub-con, and alcohol usage. Also, angst. Oh, God, the angst.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** I know, I know. I should be posting another chapter of Master Puck and not making another story. But this one satisfies my angst bunny and it's been laying around just begging to be published, so... suck it up and deal with it.

Sorry, it's 3 am and I get pretty bitchy past 2.

Also, this contains semi-vague mentions of rape, excessive alcohol use, mentions of suicide, and a minor character death (in the first line, too!)

Also also, I own absolutely nothing. Well, I do own some cough drops, but that's about it.

Enjoy!

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><p>It was kind of a good thing April Rhodes had drank herself to death because, if she hadn't, Kurt probably would've slapped her. This was, after all, completely her fault. She was the one who had given him his first drink and taught him the magic of alcohol. After that disastrous first experience (also known as the "Puking on Pillsbury" Incident), everyone assumed that he was never going to drink again. Even Kurt thought he was off the stuff forever. The memory of the hangover alone kept him sober. That is, until 'Cede's 18th. Her parents left her the house and headed out of town. Exactly three minutes after their car turned the corner, she had sent out a blast text to everyone at McKinley inviting them over for the "biggest bash EVURRR!" By the time Kurt had begged off of work at his dad's shop, the party was in full swing and swimming in booze. At first, he was able to refuse, but after the seventh time Mercedes told him to "loosen <em>uuuuup<em>, white boy," he grabbed a beer just to placate her. And then another. And another. And something that was either vodka or tequila. And "punch" that was definitely not punch. And a mixture of something in a red cup that had left him coughing violently, then laughing like a maniac. And two more beers. That was the night that he learned a startling truth about himself.

Kurt Hummel, confident gay teen with the extraordinary fashion sense, was a lush.

Well, actually, he figured it out the next morning when he stumbled home and found pictures on Facebook of himself making out with approximately 13 different guys. Thir-fucking-teen. If the photos were any indication, he had done more than make out with a few of them. After a few blackmail-threatening messages, the pictures were gone, but the memory was not. He tried to chalk it up to someone drugging him, but he didn't have any of the after-effects of roofies. No, the whole incident was because of lowered inhibitions. Somewhere, in some deep, hidden part of his brain, Kurt had _wanted_ it.

He shoved the memories away and locked them in a hidden drawer. He didn't drink again for a good long while. If any of the guys he … interacted with remembered that night, they didn't own up to it. Life went on and Kurt managed to convince himself it was one time.

When Karofsky kissed him, it flung open that hidden drawer and threw the memories at him. The jock tasted like sweat and stale beer, not too far off from that night. His hands were rough and his lips were dry. Kurt was delirious from adrenaline and fear and that wasn't much different than being drunk. It was all far too similar. He told Blaine that it was the first kiss that counted because when the others happened he had been _drunk_ and it wasn't like he'd asked for it or anything. One time. Just one time.

Even when Karofsky threatened to kill him, he didn't go drink. Even when he scared the ever-living _fuck_ out of him, he didn't get smashed. Even when he had to switch schools, he stayed away from the liquor cabinet. The one thing that pushed him over was, ironically, the one thing that saved him.

Because Blaine was just too perfect and wouldn't grab him by the shoulders and kiss him until he passed out like he wanted. Kurt _knew_ that they had chemistry. He _knew_ that Blaine liked him and he _knew_ that Blaine knew he liked him back. But neither of them was willing to make that first move.

Every camel has that one straw that will break its back, and this was Kurt's. By itself, it wouldn't have been so bad. He'd been rejected before: first Finn, then Sam. This wasn't so very different, but this time there was the added pressure of Karofsky and the new house and his new step-mom and –brother and leaving behind Mercedes and his dad's heart attack and Pavarotti molting and the sleeve on one of his Alexander McQueen sweaters coming loose and fuck it all, he just needed to forget.

He fished out the fake ID he used to get into fashion shows and headed to one of the few gay bars surrounding Lima. The bouncer glanced between the license that claimed he was 21 and the youthful boy holding it, but eventually he let him in. The bartender was cute and refilled his appletinis when they were halfway done. The music coming over the speakers was loud and hypnotic and when he figured out the words and started belting out the the chorus, he was instantly surrounded by guys who wanted to buy him drinks. Somewhere around the seventh drink, "needed to forget" turned into "needed to head home with him. And maybe him. And, ooh, yeah, definitely _him_." About the tenth drink, it turned into, "Where are we going and do I even care?" Around the fifteenth drink, Kurt blacked out.

When he woke up the next morning he was in the backseat of his car with his pants around his ankles and the most god-awful taste in his mouth. It took him three hours to get back to Lima because he kept having to stop and buy coffee and Advil by the bucket. Blaine practically attacked him when he made it to the Warblers common room, peppering him with "Where were you?"s and "Are you okay?"s and "Do you have any idea how _worried_ I was?"s. Somehow it ended up with them kissing on the couch and the term "boyfriend" being added to Kurt's vocabulary.

Their relationship was good – extraordinary, even. They stayed together all through high school. When Blaine went to NYU, they Skyped nightly. The next year, Kurt followed him out there and they shared an apartment. They were happy. But they weren't Super-Couple, and so they eventually fought. And when they fought, Kurt drank. And when Kurt drank, Kurt drank until he blacked out. And when Kurt blacked out ….

He woke up in the hospital three times – once to his father hovering over his bed, immediately launching into a speech about alcohol abuse, twice to Blaine who hovered over his bed and immediately launched into a speech about alcohol abuse. More often were the nights that he came staggering in at three AM, when Blaine cleaned him up and put him to bed with the warning that they would talk in the morning. Each time he cried and told him he would never do it again, that it was an accident, that this was the last time, the very last time. It never was.

There were only two times that Kurt was really scared about it all. The first was after he and Blaine argued about a water bill. He woke up the next morning in jail to the sound of his boyfriend arguing with the arresting officer. They had nearly broken up after that. The second was because Blaine had been texting some guy in his Econ 102 class and Kurt was sure that it was more than texting. After a night of drinking, he woke up in an alley with his own blood smeared on his thighs.

He wanted to stop. _God_, he wanted to stop. He hated the hangovers and the cottonmouth. He hated the random messages on his phone from people he didn't know. He hated that he had to have STD tests done almost routinely. He hated that Blaine couldn't trust him. He hated that he couldn't trust himself. But it was like a pit that he couldn't get out of without help. And he was not going to ask for help.

The year after he graduated college, the year that he started working for a local newspaper as the fashion editor, Blaine took Kurt to an AA meeting. He hated it at first. Everyone smelled funny and he felt like a nut, talking about his issues with strangers. Plus, how the hell was he supposed to explain it to his boss if he found out? "Just a few meetings," Blaine had urged. "Then, if you don't like it, you can quit. Please, do it for me." He went three times, then quit. A month later, he was back, explaining to Bobby the plumber and Susanna the waitress how he had gulped fifteen vodka shots and barely gotten tipsy, then sucked off some guy named either Rico or Nico in the back of a van.

Six months of sobriety fell the same night as their anniversary. At two years, three months, Blaine asked Kurt to marry him. By two years, seven months, they were. After their first fight as a married couple, Kurt locked himself in the bathroom so he wouldn't leave the house. When he finally came out, Blaine was so happy, he cried. The make-up sex was _awesome_. From there it was easier. Kurt learned new ways to cope, to deal with his emotions. He and Blaine fought less and talked things out more. Slowly but surely, they started to become that Super-Couple he had always dreamed about.

Kurt snorted at the polished wood underneath his fingertips. Super-Couple. Right. Everything had been going great. They were coming up on their third anniversary and Kurt's five years sober. Blaine was going places with his law firm and Kurt was getting up there in the world of fashion journalism. The fights were less than ever before. And then he had gone and screwed it all up.

The fight had been stupid. Kurt barely remembered what it was about, even. Something about a couch or a love seat or some other piece of furniture. Stupid. But they had fought, and Kurt had said some pretty horrible things. Finally, Blaine pushed his car keys into his hands and practically ordered him to leave before one of them did something they'd regret.

Except the problem was that everything Kurt would regret was outside of their loft. He'd spent the first five minutes driving through town, trying to avoid making the turns that were calling out to him. The next five minutes were spent parked outside of a park, beating up the steering wheel and screaming until his throat hurt. The next five minutes were spent finding an appropriate bar.

"An appropriate bar" ended up being some place called The Purple Dragon. One of those places that didn't care where you liked to stick it as long as you kept paying for the drinks. When Kurt arrived, it was just after nine and the place was getting into full swing.

And so he was sitting at the bar with a glass of the club's namesake drink resting in front of him. Beside it was his four-year sobriety pin. His fingers drummed against the surface of the bar, twitching towards one then the other in a way that was almost methodic. Aside from that one nervous tic, he looked completely calm: hair perfectly coiffed, clothes immaculate, look of haughty derision on his face. Inside, though, he was a mess._ I can't do it. I can't drink this. But I want to so bad. Just one drink. I can control it. It's been almost five years. No. No, this is how the slips get started and once you make that first slip it's too damn easy to take the second one. ...But, _God_, I want it._ Blaine would be angry, he knew. More than angry, he'd be furious. Blaine... His husband, his knight in shining armor. The one who had helped him survive high school and pulled him out of his alcoholic pit. The one who knew instinctively when Kurt had had a bad day and was waiting at their front door with low-fat Ben & Jerry's in hand. The one who saved him.

And the one who had called him a stubborn asshat just a few hours prior. The one who practically pushed him out the door. The one who put him in a situation that had placed him here.

The first drink in five years burned in that old familiar way. As the violently purple concoction settled in the pit of his stomach, Kurt took an assessment of his feelings. There was no sudden urge to scream "No!" at the top of his lungs, no overwhelming drive to pound his fists against the bar in anguish. He wasn't upset or disappointed. He wasn't anything, really. He was just ... numb. Old habits kicked in fast and soon Kurt was sloshing back shot after shot, trying desperately to find some feeling inside of himself. When he finally did, he almost wished he hadn't because the only feeling he could find was fear. Each new drink washed away some of the Blaine in his mind that had kicked him out of the house and brought back the Blaine that would be furious with what he was doing. If he went home like he was now, tipsy and smelling like club, Blaine would be furious. It could end their marriage. He couldn't go home. The only option was to stay at The Purple Dragon, even if it meant that he kept drinking.

Brian appeared around the seventeenth drink. He was a large, muscular man with a shaved head and half a sleeve of tattoos and, even though he hated people who assumed, Kurt started to pat his messenger bag for the can of mace hidden inside. But Brian wasn't there to beat him up for being gay. Brian was there to order him more drinks and make not-so-subtle innuendos. Brian was there to introduce Kurt to his two friends, Mickey and Jack. Mickey and Jack were there to tell Kurt that he didn't look too good and could he use a ride home, maybe? And when Kurt told them that he couldn't go home, they all exchanged glances in a way that was almost too familiar.

"You've got to sleep somewhere tonight," Jack pointed out, rubbing a hand up and down the small man's arm.

"Yeah," Mickey agreed, standing just a little bit too close. "We can't leave you here."

Brian grinned, like he had a great idea. "Hey, how about you let me take you back to my place? You can sober up and we can get you home in the morning."

They made it a block in Brian's van before Kurt started losing clothes. By the time they found the apartment, he had at least six hickeys and a purple mark on his hip that was going to blossom into a lovely bruise come morning. The second the door closed behind them, Brian had Kurt pinned against it as he violently attacked his mouth.

Past that, it got hazy. Kurt suspected that one of them had slipped him something, but he couldn't be sure. He could remember small snatches of the evening. Most of them were painful: the stretch of muscles being used the wrong way, something bleeding onto the gray-ish sheets beneath him, fingertips pressing into his skin. He remembered the names they called him (every single one of them deadly accurate). He remembered asking to stop, and being told no. Sometime during the night, he passed out. He doubted they even noticed.

When he woke, it was to the smell of vomit and cigarettes and sharp, shooting pain everywhere. The worst of it settled between his legs and at his temple. Moving from the bed meant peeling himself away from the sheets that were glued to him by blood. Mickey was sprawled across the mattress and Jack was out cold on the bathroom floor, a line of saliva connecting his lips and the toilet bowl. Brian was nowhere to be found. Kurt started to gather the items that had spilt from his messenger bag and take inventory. His notebook with all his designs was still in there, good. His phone was safe, as were his car keys. The only thing missing was his sobriety pin. He wanted to laugh at the irony of it. As he started to look for his clothes, he realized he was twisting his wedding band around his finger. That was the breaking point.

He hunched over, gut tightening with all the sobs he was holding in. Oh, God. He had _promised_. He had promised that he was done. To his parents, to himself, to Blaine - oh, fuck, Blaine. His husband was going to find out about this one way or another, and then he'd leave Kurt and he wasn't sure if he could handle that. His _Blaine_. He had betrayed him, cheated on him. He had taken the most perfect thing in his life and fucked it up. God, he had to do something. Blaine was going to find out, there was no way around that. There were already fourteen voicemails on his phone and he couldn't ignore that forever. He'd have to go home and then Blaine would see what had happened. Even if he somehow managed to sneak in and sleep it off before Blaine could see him, something about this night would get out. Brian would find him or Mickey would call him at home, and then he was screwed all over again.

Blaine _couldn't_ find out about this. He _couldn't_. He'd leave Kurt for someone who wasn't so much of a hassle. And it wasn't like Kurt could leave Blaine. Not sweet, perfect, wonderful Blaine who had done so much for him.

One of the sobs came free and a floodgate opened. Kurt collapsed onto the floor, hands clasped to his chest and forehead digging into the carpet. Shit. _Shit!_ Why did he have to do everything wrong? Why did he have to take everything going for him and just throw it out the window?

Jack grunted, burped, groaned and Kurt almost went into hysterics. He had to get out of there. He had to leave before they woke up enough to see him and remember him as more than a drunken fuck. But where could he go? Not home, and his SUV was back at the bar, which meant he would have to go back there to get it. God, he just wanted to die. Just get it all over with and not have to deal with it anymore. Let Blaine remember him as a good husband and not an alcoholic slut, let his parents think of him as a good son, and leave all the rest of it behind.

His body took hold of the idea before his mind really understood it, and he staggered his way towards the balcony doors. Jack appeared in the bathroom doorway, looking thoroughly confused. "Dude?" he asked by way of greeting. Kurt ignored him and walked out onto the ledge. Five stories below him, traffic rushed by, horns honked, pedestrians traveled.

This was it. Oh, God, this was it. He was ... he was really going to ... Oh, God.

Okay. Okay. First things first. He slipped off the wedding band on his finger, took one last look at the engravings - "courage" on one side, "there you are" on the other - and set it on the railing. The same with his notebook. He left the phone and keys in his bag, slung over his shoulder. He would take every memory of last night with him, to his grave. The designs, the marriage, those would stay behind, become his legacy.

"Dude!" Jack called, catching on finally to what was about to happen. He stumbled forwards, but Kurt was already up on the edge, swaying unsteadily. Heavy footsteps on the doorframe, and one last fleeting thought - something trite about defying gravity - and Kurt closed his eyes and leaned forwards. Everything went black.

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><p><strong>AN:** PLEASE DON'T KILL ME I SWEAR TO GOD IT'S NOT OVER DON'T KILL ME! I've got, like, two more chapters I can squeeze out of this one, and then it's over, but don't expect them real fast. The inspiration bug for this one bites very, very rarely. Also, I've been up for about an hour trying to get this to work and get it formatted correctly, so if you see any awkward commas or something, ignore them and tell your inner Grammar Nazi to shut the hell up, por favor. I love you, I thank you for reading, and now I sleep.

Silent


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** I'm _so_ sorry. I have a number of excuses, but I'll save them until the end. My main one is that this chapter was one of the hardest things I've ever written for a whole slew of personal reasons, but I'll save that until the end, too. You can decide whether or not you want to read them. I won't hold it against you.

Warnings for this chapter include triggers for depressing and suicidal thoughts, domestic arguments (_not_ violence), and two boys saying hurtful, horrible things.

Thank you so much and, again, I'm sorry for putting your patience to the test. Thanks for sticking with me.

Please enjoy!

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><p>Kurt had never really considered what his religious beliefs were. Yes, there had been that "Grilled Cheesus" debacle back in high school, but it had only really affirmed for him that he didn't believe in God. He'd never thought about an afterlife. If he had, he might have considered the feeling he'd had after his mom had died – sad, but still feeling as if she was there, somehow. Or the way he'd been <em>so sure<em> after his dad's heart attack that he'd live, even if everything had said he wouldn't. If Kurt Hummel had taken a few moments to think about the afterlife, he might have decided that he did believe in one.

But he was sure that, even if had taken a few moments to think about the afterlife, he would not have imagined it like this. For one thing it was _painful_. Not, like, fire and brimstone painful, or being reborn as a mealworm painful, just annoyingly painful. His head was throbbing and his mouth was dry and a large section around his middle felt bruised, badly. Wasn't heaven supposed to have magical healing powers or something? For another thing, it was blue. And not just blue, but Robin's Egg Blue, shade 158, the same color as Blaine's and his bedroom at their apartment. Soothing, sure, but also slightly unnerving. How did it _know_ that? And it smelled like bacon and French toast, Blaine's favorite breakfast, and the sheets (or whatever it was he was laying on) were definitely about 800 thread count, the same as his, and if he listened hard enough it sounded like that Barry Manilow CD Blaine had was playing, and ….

Oh, God, he was still alive, wasn't he?

The realization left his head spinning in a whole new way. How? He'd been up on that balcony and he'd fallen, yes. And then …. Then what? Had he landed in a bush or something? Was he in a hospital? Had it all been a dream?

His stomach lurched violently then and he groaned. No, no, not a dream. The hangover was definitely real. The Barry Manilow paused.

Shit.

_Shit._

Because if Barry was playing and there was French toast and bacon cooking, that meant Blaine was here. Well, shit. Blaine had to know what had happened. And if he didn't, he'd expect Kurt to tell him. Tell him what? "Sorry about last night, Blaine, but after our fight I got smashed and had a drunken orgy with three guys. Then I woke up and tried to kill myself." And, God, how was he so _calm_ about this?

He briefly considered trying to kill himself again, but pushed it away. Death had already rejected him once. Besides that, the thought of doing _anything_ made his head pound so hard he was sure it was audible.

"You're awake."

He jumped at the voice, then stilled, clutched his head and groaned, because _ow_.

"I'm making breakfast. Come get some when you're ready." By the time he looked up, Blaine had left. No matter how nice he'd made the request sound, it wasn't an offer, so Kurt somehow managed to push himself up and not puke. The closer he got to the kitchen, the louder the CD got and the more painful his head got, but he wasn't about to ask Blaine to turn it down and make that fact obvious.

Blaine stopped cutting oranges and pulled out a chair for him. "Thanks," he said as he sat.

Barry sang as Blaine sat the table.

Barry switched songs as Blaine sat down across from Kurt and started almost viciously serving bacon.

Barry continued to sing as Blaine started to eat and Kurt stared at his plate.

"Looks good," he commented. Blaine nodded once.

Barry reached a crescendo.

"Thanks for … making it." Blaine set his fork down.

Barry cut out.

Kurt laughed once, nervously. "I wonder if they serve French toast at the Copacabana."

Blaine slammed a hand down on the table, open-palmed, and looked up. "Is that supposed to be funny?"

Kurt flinched. "It – I – um."

"Do you have any idea what I went through last night? How close you were to _dying_?" He hissed the last word. "I was out looking for you for _two hours_ and then I get a call from your cell phone from some … some … steroid-shooting asshole telling me that you had tried to _jump_ off his _balcony_. Thank God he managed to grab you before you fell." Kurt couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not. "And then I get there and you're passed out on their bed, half-naked and looking like some cheap slut they hired to – " Blaine stopped himself mid-sentence, standing up and turning away.

Kurt's voice came out small and weak. "I'm … I'm _so_ sorry, Blaine. God, I – I … I just …."

"'You just' what, Kurt? What is it this time? Were you 'just' afraid? Or maybe 'just' sad? Or, the old standby," he chuckled once, a dark, humorless sound, "were you 'just' angry? Because that's what it's all going to come back to, isn't it? It's _my_ fault for getting you mad. It's _my_ fault you broke your promises and got drunk again. It's _my_ fault that you acted like some fucking slut!"

"No!" Blaine looked a little startled. Frankly, Kurt was surprised he'd managed to find his voice as well. "No," he continued. "Blaine, I don't blame any of this on you. None of it. It's my fault, all of it's my fault, I know that."

"Oh, don't lie to me," Blaine shot back. "You blame me for everything. Every little thing that goes wrong in your pathetic life somehow leads back to me. Well, guess what? I'm tired of cleaning up your messes! I'm tired of acting like I'm the only adult in this relationship! I'm tired of dealing with this!" Kurt vaguely noticed that his hands were shaking. "I have a life too, you know. Did that ever occur to you? Did you ever think that while you were out fucking everything with a dick, I was trying to find a way to pay our bills this month? How am I supposed to explain to my boss that the reason I needed a day off today was because I had to watch out for my drunken boyfriend? Do you have any idea the position you've put me in?"

"For God's sake, not everything is about you, _Blaine_!" Kurt stood up, slamming his fists down onto the table and sending the silverware clattering to the floor. "I was practically _raped_ last night by three guys whose last names I don't even know! I've lost my wedding ring and my sketchbook and – oh, yeah, this morning I tried to _kill myself_! I am _sick_, Blaine. I am _sick_ and I don't blame you one bit for it, but it would be nice to have a little bit of support instead of you bitching to me about the trouble I put you through with my _suicide attempt_!"

"'_Support_'?" Blaine spat. "Suppor - ! What do you think I have been doing for the past five years? I have driven you to AA meetings, I have gone out of my way to avoid bars, I have switched to grocery stores without a liquor section and you want to talk to me about _support_? Maybe if you stopped being such a selfish _bitch_ for _two seconds_, you would see everything I have given up for you!"

"I am _sorry_, Blaine," Kurt yelled. "Okay? Is that what you want to hear? Because it's true. I'm sorry that I'm a drunk, I'm sorry that everyone has to put up with it. I've made your life miserable and I get that, but you have no idea how miserable _I_ am!"

Blaine stabbed a finger at him and Kurt could almost swear that he felt it stab him in the chest. "That," he said. "That right there. That's what you do. Every time something happens to you, you dump it on someone else. You drag people down with you and then complain that your life is worse than theirs, and you know what? I'm sick of it, Kurt. I'm sick of being your scapegoat. I'm done."

The stab in his chest became a fist squeezing on his heart, choking the breath out of him. Somewhere, distantly, he heard himself say, "Well then, I guess I'll just go pack."

Blaine looked at him for a long moment. Kurt couldn't read the emotion in his eyes. Anger? Pain? Regret? Relief? Then he turned back to the counter and the moment was gone. Shaking, Kurt fled back to the bedroom.

He thought that maybe there, away from Blaine and the rest of the world, maybe there he would finally cry. After perching on the edge of the bed, he waited for the tears to come. And waited. And waited. Fuck, what was _wrong_ with him? Why wasn't he crying? He'd cheated on his husband, tried to jump off of a building, gotten in a fight with said husband, and then basically been kicked out of his own house, and all he could do was sit here, shaking and feeling like he needed to throw up?

As the minutes ticked past, he knew he needed to do something. Stand up and pack, lie down and sleep, go back into the kitchen and apologize, _something_. It felt like a lead weight had settled in his stomach, though. He couldn't do anything but sit there with his hands fisted in the bedspread, listening to the low thrum of the air conditioner and wrestling with the thoughts spiraling in his head.

He was a fuck-up. Maybe the world's biggest fuck-up. How did he manage to do this in _every_ relationship? He scared off Finn, he alienated Sam, he pushed Mercedes away, he insulted Rachel, he let down his dad, and now he'd cheated on Blaine. He couldn't do anything right, could he? On top of that, he was too skinny and pale and girly for anyone but Blaine to even put up with, let alone love. He was a slut and a liar and a fag and a gold-digger and a failure.

Blaine was going to break up with him, and then where was he going to go? Not his dad's. Burt would take him in, sure, but he wasn't going to disappoint his dad like he'd disappointed himself. Besides, how would he get a plane ticket? Blaine's income was the one that kept them in this house, kept him out of poverty. Without his husband, Kurt was half a person. He was drifting, alone, not sure where to go. And when he was alone, Kurt tended to do things that he'd regret. Like last night.

And, God, if that wasn't evidence of his stupidity. He could have gone to a park or a hotel or just sat in his car or, hell, gone back in and apologized. And what did he do instead? Drink and fuck around. That was him. Kurt Hummel, alcoholic slut.

A thought he'd been avoiding wormed its way towards the front of his mind. Blaine hated him, his father was disappointed in him, Kurt couldn't do anything right, and it was only going to get worse from here. Really, what was the point of going on? To become a homeless whore, turning tricks so he could buy more drinks? To struggle to get by while trying to find someone who would treat him half as well and love him half as much as Blaine? Why not end it now and make everyone's lives a little better? Sure, Blaine might feel bad and his dad might cry, but they'd get over it eventually. They'd find ways to live without him, maybe figure out that they were better off without him.

He could do it. There were razors in the bathroom and Tylenol and NyQuil under the sink. He had plenty of scarves he could tie a noose with. There was even a notepad on the nightstand if he wanted to write a note. Say goodbye to Blaine, let him know that it was never his fault his husband was so messed up. The insurance would cover his part of the income long enough for Blaine to find someone new, someone better.

Something in him clicked and he found his muscles again. He stood up, then paused. The kitchen had gone silent, which could mean that Blaine was no longer angry. He could go in there, sit down with his husband and try to work this thing out. Or he could kill himself. His stomach dropped. Time seemed to rush past him. His mind was everywhere. Listening to the air conditioner, feeling the carpet on his toes, darting to the kitchen, then the bathroom, then back again. Wrapping words into a suicide note, then into an apology. Wondering why, even now, he still couldn't cry.

Then he took a step and the moment was over.

Blaine had taken a seat at the kitchen table when Kurt walked in. He looked up, then put his head in his hands again. Kurt's eyes darted away, scared that even a look would start them up again. The dishes had been piled (or thrown, rather) haphazardly into the sink. One of the plates had apparently cracked. The pieces were sitting next to the basin. The knife that Kurt had knocked to the floor had skidded under the lip of the counter. It was still lying there.

Wordlessly, he walked over, picked it up, and started rinsing it off. He wondered how the plate had cracked. It was smeared with syrup. Was there any French toast left? When was the last time he had eaten? His mind skittered away from the thought because that involved thinking about last night, which he did _not_ want to get into right now.

Blaine's chair scraped against the floor and Kurt startled, realizing that he'd been scrubbing the same knife for three minutes straight. He reached to turn the water off, but another hand was already there. Tentatively, he set the knife down. It was probably better if he wasn't holding a sharp object during this talk.

"Kurt," Blaine started, his voice raspy – with misuse or emotion, Kurt couldn't tell. He cleared it and then tried again. "Kurt, I'm … I'm sorry, okay? I said some things that – "

Kurt turned and put a hand up to his husband's mouth before he could finish his thought. "Can we not do this?" he whispered.

Blaine lightly gripped his wrist and pulled it away. "Do what?" he murmured back. He didn't let go of Kurt's hand.

"This thing," the countertenor sighed, gesturing between them. "We always do this thing where we say that we didn't mean it and then we ignore it until the next time it happens. We bury, Blaine. It's what we do." He moved in what looked like laughter, but wasn't. "And look where it's gotten us. So … can we not do this?"

Blaine looked at him for a few long, uncomfortable seconds. He seemed to be looking right through Kurt. "Okay," he finally whispered. "Okay, fine. What do you want to do instead?"

_What do I want? I want to be cured. I want to be able to have a beer with friends or a glass of champagne without turning into a whore. I want you to look at me and see someone who you can respect. I want to respect myself. _

But none of those wishes came out. Instead, Kurt found himself saying, " I want to take a break."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Before I post my excuses, I want to say thank you for reading this, again, and if you enjoyed it, please let me know with a review or a PM. If you hated it, or if you just want to talk, please let me know that too! I'm not going to promise that this next chapter will be up soon, because I'm signing up for college and writing a novel with a friend, but I will be working on it. This story is taking a decidedly different turn than I had originally planned for it, though. Now I've got to try to steer it back on course.

As for my excuses: Um, first off, I graduated high school, which meant final exams. That took some doing. Then I moved into a new apartment. Tough. And I've been searching for a job and trying to sign up for college classes and one of my friends wants me to collaborate on a novel with him. Also, there was the whole matter that this chapter meant tapping into some tough memories for me that I've been blocking out, namely the events leading up to and immediately following my own suicide attempt. (Additionally, that's where my sources on post-suicide attempt emotions come from, so I'd rather you not tell me you have a beef with that, if you don't mind.) I cried a total of three times while writing this chapter and more than once tried to change it, but it refused to be altered.

Thank you for bearing with me, and I'm so sorry if I have to beg your patience again. My readers and reviewers are the biggest inspiration for me, and your support means more than you'll ever know.

~Silent


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